Long overdue

So this update is long overdue. I’ve been really busy recently with… well, life. First there was the big annual ISCA crunch where I helped Jim get his submission from 0 to paper in less than a week. Part of that was help getting him up and running on NCSA’s Itanium-2 cluster (Teragrid) so that he could have results to write about. The other part was helping him get an actual paper together the day of the deadline since Nick was focused on the other project he wanted to submit for. Whole thing was pretty exhausting, but we got an 18 page paper out somehow. The text was definitely rough, and I didn’t really get a chance to go over Jim’s results section because Nick kept pulling me off to do figures for his other submission, but I’m glad we managed to get something sent off. Figure Jim could do without the disappointment of working his tail off up to the deadline only to be informed that Nick was pulling the plug because he didn’t have enough of a paper to submit. Oh well, what the hell, and he flew his plane into a mountain.

So that was all wrapped up Thursday night (week before Thanksgiving). Amanda had Friday off, so we headed up to the Chicagoland area to look at furniture. She ran across Room and Board somehow, and we really liked what they’re stuff looked like on their website and in their catalog. Since they had a couple of stores in the ‘burbs we decided to go up and have a look-see to determine if the stuff was as nice in person. Looked like really nice furniture for the most part (actual wood as opposed to particle board with wood veneer). I would figure based on price, but it’s nice to know for sure. So I guess we’ll be ordering a bunch of stuff from them (we really like the “Asian-influence” stuff). Conveniently enough, they’ve got a flat shipping price regardless of how much stuff you’re buying and will deliver each piece into the room of your choice (white glove service I think it’s called?). While we were up there we managed to hit some places we don’t have down here in CU on our lunch stop (Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, and Restoration Hardware), with the eventual goal of going to see IKEA. Bizarre store.

So last week was pretty packed with house stuff. Got tile put in the bathrooms and kitchen to replace the yucky vinyl (finally got the last of the toilets reinstalled yesterday and the doors for the upstairs bathrooms trimmed to clear the now higher floors). We’re still waiting on the tile guy to come back and put up fresh black baseboard underneath all the cabinets, but that’s pretty minor (and doesn’t prevent use of the bathrooms or kitchen). We also got the rest of the carpeting replaced including the last of the pink carpet that was on the stairs. So we’ve got nice new snazzy floors just about everywhere now. Gonna be real nice. I’ve got some of the photos up at the usual place, but have been too lazy to put up the most current stuff yet. I should mention that we worked on moving all of last week too, culminating in a big move on Saturday with a 14’ Uhaul to get the big furniture and such that won’t fit in my car. Amanda’s family were a big help getting that all taken care of.

So now we’re actually living in our house which is exciting. We’ve got a bed set up (mostly), and are slowly getting our lives in order again. I’ve been working on trying to get various services killed off at the apartment and set up at the house (ie landline phone, internet, tv, garbage… the essentials). At some point I should figure out what to do with… well, lots of things on the todo list (which only seems to get longer and never shorter). Boy, isn’t life as a home owner grand. :)